Why does the Hagaddah mention that on all other nights we eat both chametz and matzah?
“Why is this night different from all other nights, that on all other nights we eat chametz and matzah but on this night all of it is matzah?”
According to what would appear to be the simple understanding of this stanza - that on all other nights we can eat either chametz or matzah, whichever our heart desires - it should have written "we eat either chametz or matzah", like it wrote in the last stanza “we eat either sitting or leaning”. Or better still, it should have written "on all other nights we eat chametz", like it wrote with maror “on all other nights we eat other vegetables”. Why does it say “chametz and matzah”?
However, it seems to me that we can explain the wording of this stanza according to what the poskim and commentaries wrote - that the matzah that we eat to fufill the mitzvah of matzah is a commemoration of the thanksgiving offering. Because there are four categories of people who are obligated to give thanks to Hashem, and the mnemonic to remember them is חיי"ם - one who has recovered from sickness (חלה), one who has returned from sea (ים), one who has been released from captivity (יצא מאסורים), and one who has crossed a wilderness (מדבר). And all of these four things happened to Yisrael - they were released from slavery, they were healed from their spiritual sickness, they crossed the sea and they crossed the wilderness.
Now, the thanksgiving offering can be eaten on the day that it is brought and the following night, and there is a mitzvah to eat it. Therefore, the son asks: Why is it that usually when there is a mitzvah to eat bread, that is, the thanksgiving offering, we eat both chametz and matzah, because the mitzvah includes eating them both (the thanksgiving offering is accompanied by forty loaves of bread - thirty unleavened (matzah) and ten leavened (chametz)). So why on this night when we are eating as a commemoration of the thanksgiving offering are we not eating chametz and matzah together, and instead we are eating only matzah?
To this the father responds that it is impossible to eat chametz because they did not have time to let the dough rise and because of this we are forbidden to eat chametz on Pesach, and therefore we can only eat matzah by itself.
Why does the Haggadah say that if Hashem had not taken us out of Egypt, then three more generations would have remained subjugated to Pharaoh?
“And if the Holy One, Blessed be He, had not taken our forefathers out of Egypt, behold, we and our children and our children’s children would have been subjugated to Pharaoh in Egypt.”
This statement can be explained by the well known fact that Hashem took us out 190 years before the completion of the 400 years that had been decreed upon us. And since the length of one generation is seventy years and since the youngest men who were enslaved when they went out were twenty years old, if we add a further fifty years to complete that generation and add a further 140 years for two more generations, the total would be 190 years. Thus, if they had remained in Egypt for the missing 190 years, they and their children and their children’s children would have remained subjugated to Pharaoh in Egypt.
And since, as Chazal explain, it was the harshness of the servitude which allowed Hashem to shorten the time to only 210 years, if they had actually completed all the 400 years that had been decreed upon them then they would not have needed to be harshly enslaved - it would have sufficient to have been merely subjugated to the Egyptians.
This is what the Haggadah is saying: Behold we and our children and our children’s children would have been subjugated - but not slaves. (And the reason why it says "we" is because in every generation a person must see himself as if he himself went out from Egypt.)